Mexico’s ex-president urges students to find purpose, compassion

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Sarah Hoffman/Staff Photographer

Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico, visited the campus of Christ the King Catholic School on Friday in North Dallas to talk to students. “Think big and you will accomplish big things,” the 71-year-old said.

Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico, urged Dallas students on Friday to find a life purpose, to be compassionate and to be wary of political ideologies.

“Think big and you will accomplish big things,” said the 71-year-old in his visit to the campus of Christ the King Catholic School.

“Look at that guy from Twitter,” he said, referring to its successful public stock offering this week. “He was just a kid like you with bright ideas.”

The North Dallas school hosted students from other Catholic and Dallas ISD schools and from Southern Methodist University. Sounding like a priest and saying he once considered becoming one, Fox instructed the students to live a purposeful life filled with compassion.

“That value of compassion is extraordinarily significant. … It is you putting yourself in the shoes or feet of the others, to suffer when they suffer, to laugh when they laugh,” he said.

Fox often mentioned the narratives of Nelson Mandela, a South African who became president after a long fight against apartheid, and José Hernandez, a Californian who became an astronaut after a childhood as a migrant farm worker. Both are men who achieved great things despite enormous obstacles.

In 2000, Fox defeated Mexico’s often-corrupt and authoritarian ruling party, which held the presidency for about seven decades. The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is now in power again, after two presidential reigns by Fox’s party, known as the National Action Party or PAN.

After his speech, Fox, dressed casually in tan corduroy slacks and a burgundy shirt, took questions from eager students dressed formally in the dark blue and forest green uniforms of their schools.

Here is an edited version of that exchange:

What was your greatest achievement as president?

“There is only one way you can change a nation in one generation and it is through education, and that is unfortunately something we don’t have at enough of a level in Mexico and Latin America,” Fox said.

“I worked hard for education. … I am thoroughly unsatisfied, thoroughly unsatisfied. I really wish we could have done more. Six years is a really short period of time.”

What is your view of President Peña Nieto and his plans for a partial privatization of Pemex, Mexico’s oil monopoly?

“We have been trying to change that law, like Brazil did, like Colombia did. But we have not been able to do it because of opposition,” he said.

“Today, Petrobras, the [Brazilian] oil company, is extremely successful, and Pemex does not have any capacity to even pay their debts. So, I hope this change will come along.”

What’s your opinion of the political changes in the presidency between el PAN and el PRI?

“When you grow old and you have gone through many things in your life, you reach a plateau and you see things differently,” Fox said. “Ideologies for me are a lost cause. … It is an issue of the 20th century. … Look at Republicans and Democrats here fighting like dogs and cats.

“In Mexico, we are much worse because we have 11 political parties.

“I support President Peña from a different party. … The party that I kicked out in the year 2000, I back up now because I believe in the person, the individual, more than the political party.

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